July 2006

July 31, 2006

Originally from Belgium, she found her way mysteriously to the US, where I bought her for a song. Unfortunately, the seller was of the genus non-co-operatus, probably miffed that I hadn't paid enough for her (I am a Bargain Diva, after all), and refused to post to Australia. So I had her sent to my godmother in New York, and promptly forgot all about her.

Cheryle, puzzled, awaited further instructions (not forthcoming) and finally carried her rather elaborately (and inconveniently) back to Melbourne in her hand luggage, many, many moons later. Another one I owe her.

She's quite gorgeous, with a ceramic, handpainted face:

A very dear little felt pinny (love that word, pinny), a little grubby, but none the less dear for all that:

and hand carved, balsa wood clogs. I'd say she's stuffed either with straw, or possibly even horsehair. She's very firm and stiff, and vaguely crunchy:

I am currently on a self-imposed ban from all things Ebay. It's hard. I'm thinking of joining Ebay Anonymous.

July 30, 2006

The trouble with a life full of little girls, is that they are forever having birthdays.

And I am forever having to come up with a Clever Idea to counter it. Especially given that most of said little girls are Brand Nazis and have serious Designer Tastes.

I can't keep up with it, financially or morally. I have deep-seated political and philosophical issues with 11 year olds chasing brand chic, which I won't bore you with.

So I tend to make presents, to keep everyone happy. It's designer isn't it? Well, after a fashion. And amazingly, a one-off Poppalina somehow keeps them quiet.

We do a lot of Tshirts, mostly with their favourite buzz words of the day.

I am still trying to find a way to print effectively onto shirts without resorting to screenprinting (impractical), transfer (unreliable), or digital printing (unwashable). Any advice would be most welcome.

So I usually machine-embroider them.

This went to Anna. I wasn't very happy with it, too froufrou for me, but it gives you an idea.

Buzz word for this week is, you guessed it, 'puff', another word for 'cool' (or 'homosexual', if you're English, but I haven't told the girls that). I think they got it from the Dominos ad, which is currently promoting a line in puff pastry pizza (ick).

Fonts and colours chosen by Mym.

I promise something a little funkier next time. But they are tweenies, after all.

July 29, 2006

Dontcha just love a good button? I got a pile of them in yesterday's mail.

I especially love buttons still on the card. I have a passion for text graphics (I have more digital fonts in my possession than I would be comforable admitting to), so vintage packaging is a source of endless fascination for me.

Mym's not allowed to remove buttons from cards without prior approval, on pain of execution, but she doesn't mind, because we still have thousands lying loose in tins that she can knock herself out with.

Buttons have been around since the Bronze Age, but were generally worn as ornaments. The Harappans used them in the Indus Valley (3300 - 1300 BC), Bronze Age China (2000 - 1500 BC) was fond of them, and the Ancient Romans, well they were just Button Nuts.

But they didn't become functional as we know it (ie. keeping our clothes from falling off) until 13th - 14th century Europe. And despite all the technological advances since then, we all still love a good button.

July 26, 2006

Spent the day in a state of general blitzkrieg, after viewing the work of Beck Wheeler (thanks for that, Ramona....I think), and I have decided never to make anything again.

But I'm still unpacking my new house (it never ends, really) and uncovered an old thing that cheered me up a little. I made this for Mym when she was about 6 months old, to wear to a Very Important Wedding, at which she was Baby of Honour (an unconventional title, I know, and one created especially for her). And I still rather love it.

I love the buttons, French antique, sent as a birthday present years ago from my Fairy Godmother (I really do have one). She lives in Manhattan, the home of Tender Buttons, for which I am eternally grateful.

I was dead broke at the time, as single mothers are wont to be, so made the whole thing out of a bag of stranded cottons I found in my yarn basket. There really is a lot to be said for using what you have, it forces you to improvise, with varying results, I admit, but it's always interesting, you never know what's going to happen.

As you can see, what happened here was a colour scheme that wouldn't be embarrassed to front up at a Bollywood Shaadi. She made quite a splash in it. I always did so loathe the limited pastel colours available then for baby yarns, they used to make me so annoyed. It's better now, but not much.

This project led me into others in which the whole point of interest was juxtaposed colour. Each colour has to work with the one before it and the one after, and beyond that, it's completely random. I worked this idea for ages. I still do actually.

July 25, 2006

One of the upsides of being a Stage Mum is that, when you've finally driven through the rain and traffic, across town, in peak hour, to the Swing Dance Class at the End of the Universe, you get to sit for 2 hours, and there's absolutely nothing to do, but knit.

No washing, no dogs dropping balls hopefully at your feet, none of those tiresome things you should really be doing that always spoil the fun of sneaking a little craft in during work hours. 2 hours of guilt-free, uninterrupted knitting.

I'll drink to that.

I used to knit a lot. All the time. Obsessively. I used to make extraordinary intarsia projects, involving 30 and upwards balls of yarn at a time. I would spend as much time untangling the yarns as I did knitting. I had infinite time and infinite patience, and, most tragic of all, I gave everything I made away, and have none left to show, and you probably don't even believe me. Somehow I thought that there would always be another.

But then I became a mother. Free time became a distant memory. Needing to finish a row before I put the work down became a joke of heartbreaking proportions. And stickybun fingers wanting to have a go when Mummy wasn't watching put paid to knitting completely. I rediscovered crochet, which doesn't reduce one to a foetal position when a child (or dog) runs off with the ball of yarn, while it's still attached to your work.

When I took it up again, quite recently, I was surprised at how pleasant it was (and how rusty I was). There's something about the texture of handknitting that can't be duplicated by machine, or crochet, or anything else that I've ever seen, and I'm enjoying it immensely. My dog did try once to mess with it, but found his ears boxed so resoundingly that his appetite for yarn has sinced mysteriously waned.

So I'm just fooling around with a stitch sampler really, just to get my skills back up to scratch, but a number of people have insisted that I make it into a scarf. Really? Oh, alright then....

This is a heart in progress (story of my life, really)....

Heart, ducks and teddies. I had a cross stitch magazine lying open next to me and threw these in, but the ducks didn't really make it....

And this is the whole thing, though it's actually quite a bit bigger now, but no shots handy...

There's a Swing Ball coming up on the 12th, I'll be the one huddled in the balcony seats furtively knitting while the other 699 people Group Charleston like the War just ended.

July 23, 2006

"Cotton materials, as though sensing the all-prevailing need for general economy, are now very smart and tempting-looking. Thus one is able to look both cool and smart with a very little outlay, for there is no reason why cotton frocks should not be worn for many occasions in the hot weather."

Madame Weigel's Journal of Fashion, December 1931

Ramona of Handmadelife raised the question that has been keeping me awake for nights...

Who was Madame Weigel?

I found the answer in the archives of the Brighton Cemetorians website, an excerpt from which I'm not afraid to share with you now.

‘Madame’ Weigel

The Death Certificate of Johanna Wilhelmine Weigel records some details relating to her life story. The names of her parents and her maiden name were recorded as “unknown” which is not surprising as the Weigel’s guarded their privacy closely and after her death, these details were unlikely to have been known by even her close intimates. She married Oscar in New York when she was 29 years of age. Johanna died aged 92 years from heart failure - 28 days and myocardial degeneration - 10 years. The place of death and usual residence were recorded as (The Oriental Hotel) 41 Collins Street, Melbourne. On 11 January 1940, her body was cremated at Springvale Necropolis where the records reveal that her remains were collected. Nothing is known of who collected the remains, or what became of them. A search of the German records for Johanna’s maiden name of Astmann (obtained from Oscar Weigel’s probate papers), revealed that she was born at Bromberg Stadt, Posen, Prussia (Poland) on 11 February 1847, the second of five children born to August Astmann and Emilie née Sachs. On 8 August 1872, Johanna sailed on the ship Hamburg for New York and in the ensuing years, is believed to have found work as a designer with McCall’s Fashion House, a leading paper pattern establishment where she was “regarded as a most expert fashioner and cutter”. A generous benefactor to various charities, Johanna was also a feminist who once said that “if a girl has another talent than cooking, I see no reason why she should not develop it in preference to house and kitchen work, which can be learned when necessary”.

An Interesting Romance of Industry

The “Madame Weigel’s Journal of Fashion” dated 1 February 1943 records on the front cover that the business was established 65 years ago - within a year after their arrival in Melbourne in 1877. Some three years later circa 1880, they produced the first fashion journal printed in Australia which was originally known as “Weigel’s Journal of Fashions” and later, circa 1900, as “Weigel’s Journal of Fashion”. Describing the beginning of the pattern industry, she once said, “Women asked me to show them how to make dresses like mine, and in a moment of weakness I cut some patterns for them”. A small shop was opened in the Eastern Arcade, Melbourne selling paper patterns for women’s dresses before demand exceeded supply and the business moved to 99 Swanston Street. Some time after 1883, the business was carried out at the Lennox Street, Richmond site where it continued until well after Johanna’s death, eventually moving to 12 Levanswell Road, Moorabbin. The role played by Oscar Weigel in the business activities should not be underestimated. Oscar was an engineer, undoubtedly with drawing skills, and it is known that he did the drawings to illustrate the various styles of frocks. Johanna, formerly employed by McCalls in New York, would have been privy to the cutting-edge technology of fashion design and the manufacture of paper patterns, skills which were crucial to the success of their paper dress pattern business. It is abundantly clear from research completed to date that Oscar and Johanna Weigel developed a thriving fashion and clothing pattern industry which played a major role in the history of Australia, New Zealand and countries further afield. Not only did they bring to Australia the latest fashion and clothing designs from London, Paris and New York, but they made it possible for those with only modest sewing skills to make their own fashionable clothing. They revolutionised the appearance of people, women and children in particular, because rich and poor alike could purchase reasonably priced paper patterns, buy a bolt of cloth according to their budget, and make attractive garments at affordable prices. The women in country towns availed themselves of Madame Weigel’s patterns and made clothes that were of the latest styles. They were no longer the poorly dressed and unfashionable “country cousins”. The contribution made by the Weigels to the development of the fashion and clothing industry, assures them of a permanent place in the history of Australia, for it was they who kept the Australian citizens abreast of the “best dressed” in Europe and America.

July 19, 2006

I dunno about you guys, but I just adore tea cosies. I have a teapot, that I almost never use, opting for the quick-fix teabag almost every time. But cosies, well, I love them, they're special, and it's so easy to convince myself that I really will find some ingenious use for them to justify the purchase.

I had a friend once, who was undergoing chemotherapy and used to sew up the sides of vintage cosies and wear them as hats, or, more precisely, head cosies. Fortunately, he was very beautiful, despite the ravages of chemo, and managed look mighty hip with his head swaddled in pink and green blackberry stitch (hard to believe, I know, but that's how very handsome he was), though I suspect that koala number may have defeated even him. He would have looked like an AWOL Wiggle.

Speaking of the koala number, this book is from some time around WWII, and as such, in the public domain ("Waste not, want not", as the war-wise Madame Weigel might say).... so if you would like to knit the koala, you can right click, choose save target as, and download it here. (these especially precise instructions are for you, Marjorie).

And I'm sure you all need one, just like I do. Very, very badly.

Happy to post more over the coming weeks, let me know if there is anything in particular that you fancy. There's even more than in the picture, but the back page is missing off the booklet, so no colour shots, I'm afraid.

July 17, 2006

Melbourne has always been inordinately fond of retro, and the Galleon cafe in St Kilda is a classic example, boasting arguably St Kilda's finest coffee. Quiet and peaceful first thing in the morning, with a current preference for early Rod Stewart, it can, of course, become a complete madhouse by lunchtime. But the staff (these days) are invariably kind, patient and perfectly lovely.

Our favourite is Lou (though I'm also rather partial to Ryan). Mym and Lou are particularly close, so close in fact that Mym made Lou a cat, after a conversation about Lou being homesick for her cat back in Brisbane.

That's Mym tucking into a hot milo in the background.

I wish I could've recorded the sound Lou made when she received it, it warmed the cockles of that shrivelled, early-morning, caffeine/nicotine-deprived, black heart of mine.

But I did get a shot of Lou with the cat, now named Mishka. How I managed to keep my hands steady under the circumstances remains a mystery.

July 16, 2006

Mym's a big fan of Mirka Mora, a celebrated Australian painter and doll-maker, and has just finished reading her book 'Of Love and Clutter' . She was so inspired, she made this doll for Mirka, just to let her know how much she loves and appreciates her.

Mym grew up in St Kilda, a seaside suburb of Melbourne, and Mirka, in those days, lived at the end of our street, often walking past with her latest purchase (almost always a book) from Acland St. I'm sure my memory is playing tricks on me here, but I seem to remember that Mym would always be crying over something when Mirka wandered past, and Mirka would invariably stop and suggest "chocolat" to remedy the situation. This tells you everything you need to know about Mirka, who, as I understand it, believes that there is little in this world that cannot be remedied by beauty, or something gorgeous to eat.

The older I get, the more I'm inclined to agree with her.

If you can get past the 2nd guessing of the Dread Pirate Negus, there's a good interview with her here.

Such a lovely woman, may she live forever, and I hope the rapturous offerings of my 11 year old warms her heart and makes her smile.

July 13, 2006

For a craft blog I sure am posting a lot about music. Those who have browsed my About page will know that on the full moon I am wont to turn into a cowgirl and howl heavenwards. This is one such week. I will be back on craft by the weekend, I promise.

Yippee, indeed. It could equally well have been titled 'Dear God Is It Really Finished?!', or perhaps 'Hallelujah, can we all go home now?!' but they're maybe a little wordy.

This was a long time coming, involving almost every musician on the planet, well from here to Tamworth, anyway.

If I wasn't such a Tough Girl, I would have cried (actually I did a little, but only with relief, and don't tell anybody).

And it's good. It's wonderful. I have an advance copy (being a best friend does occaisonally have it's perks), but Yippee should be available any minute on Croxton Records. Hammer them with your pre-orders now. Meanwhile, for those of you who can't wait, I have The Diva's permission to post a preview: